Flooring



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UNHEDA STATES v vPnTnrrr OFFICE.

JAMES'IV. SEE, OF HAMILTON, OHIO.

FLOORING.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 479,126, dated July 19, 1892.

Application filed July 6, 1891. Serial No. 398,466. (No model.)

To @ZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, JAMES W. SEE, of I-Iamilton, Butler county, Ohio, lhave invented certain new and useful Improvements in Flooring, dac.,v of which the following is a specification.

This invention pertains to improvements in ooring, &c., designed tosecure' a handsome, cheap, and durable surface.

The application of carpets or other floor` coverings-to oors satisfies at once the desire for beauty, warmth of tone, and softness of tread; but such surface is 'eX-pensive and is not durable and is not cleanly. Soft iioorcoverings are not at all adapted for use in the kitchen or the public store or the public office. Oil-cloths and linoleums are more cleanly, but are not durable and are very expensive. Parquetry flooring, while it satisfies the eye, is very expensive and requires great care to maintain it in any condition of nsatisfactory appearance and is not adapted to the rough use of the kitchen and store. What is wanted is a surface which'will stand hardknocks and which will wear well and which will stand the scrubbing-brush and which is not expensive. The simple plain hard-wood ioor is believed to more perfectly fulfill these conditions than anything heretofore devised; but such floors are cold in tone, lacking entirely in beauty and cheerfulness, and they become .disgured by the j oint-cracks as shrinkage takes place. Any attempt to improve the appearance of such floors by oiling or painting is idle, as the eect is. purely superficial and becomes soon removed in spots by ordinary processl of wear and cleaning, leaving the floor more unsightly than if left with the raw Wooden surface.

The object of my improvements is to produce a iioor having the qualities of hardness, durability, and capacity to stand rough usage and cleaning as found in the raw hard-woodfloor, and possessing, also, the qualities of warmth of tone and pleasing beauty heretofore obtained only by means of expensive and perishable floor-coverings, the improved floor being also comparatively inexpensive.

Modern wood-filling composition-fas, for instance, those containing sileX-ll the surface grain of the wood and render the surface extremely hard; but it is the surface only that becomes thus improved by the use of fillers and Wear and scrubbing soon remove the hardened surface. I employ hardeningllers, but I so place them in the wood that their virtues remain until the floor is so far Wornas to Abecome too uneven for the uses of a satisfactory floor.

My improvements will be readily under# stood from the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which- Figures 1, 2, and 3 illustrate succeeding steps in the method of production chosen in the exemplication of my improvements; Fig. 4, a view of a 4finished floor-board resulting from the exemplifying method; Fig. 5, a plan of a section of flooring laid with such floorboards; Fig. 6,a vertical section through one of the punctures of the surface of the door; and Fig. 7,a plan, upon an enlarged scale, showing more clearly the details of the design chosen for exempliication.

Let A in Fig. l represent a piece of dressed iiooring-lumber of a good sort-say yellow pine. I fill the upper surface of this board with filler of any desired shade applied upon the surface and filling the surface grain in the usual manner. The result is to give to the board a surface hardness and a desirable tone of color; but this surface filling may, if desired, be omitted entirely. I then apply to the surface of the board a resistparaffine, for instance-Which would prevent the`surface taking any more filler, and then in producing the design chosen in the exemplification cut across the surface ot' the board the incised lines or cuts B, having about the crosssection indicated at G in Fig. -say, threesixteenths of an inch deep. These cuts may be produced byremoving the Wood by suitable' cutting operation or by the mere im# IOO resist, which has been applied to the surface l of the board, is for the purpose of preventing the discoloration of other portions ofthe board When applying the filler to the incisions. Then in each alternate space of the board I stab into the surface of the board the punctures D, which I fill with a colored filler-say blue. These punctures may consist, as shown, of closely-grouped diamond-shaped figures having about thecross-section shown atlG in Fig. (i. This leaves the board in the condition shown in Fig. 2, With alternate blue squares and intermediate plain squares, the punctures D being so closely grouped as to give to their squares the virtual effect of a solid color. I then similarly stab the intermediate spaces E and fill them with another colored filler-say redthus leaving the board, as shown in Fig. 3, with alternating squares of red and blue. I then tongue and groove the board, as shown in Fig. Il, producing the completed Hoor-board ready for laying. The object in deferrin g the tonguing and grooving till after the stabbing and filling is to guard against the possibility of the stabbing process splintering off the top member of the groove. I then lay the floor with such boards, alternating the position of the squares, as shown in Fig. 5. The iioor may then be smoothed and is ready for use. It has Whatever beauty is incident to the colors and pattern'chosen; ithas the hardness and durability of the raw lumber selected; it has the additional hardness dueto the presence of filler; it will stand the rough usage of the rauT wooden floor; it Will stand the scrubbing of the raw Wooden floor, and it will maintain its characteristics until the oor is so far Worn as to be too uneven for satisfactory use. The designs and choice of color may of course be varied infinitely, and instead of the pattern being Worked out upon a single board, as in the exemplification, any desired patterns, geometrical or floral, may be Worked out by having part of the pattern on one board and part on another, &c. The designer may, if he pleases, execute in this kind of fiooring the identical patterns which he Would pro-v duce in carpeting or in oil-cloth; but iioorboards are liable toshrinkage, and the opening of the joint-cracks might in some designs seriously disiigure the beauty of the pattern; but in the exemplifying-pattern, as seen in Fig. 5, it will be noticed that the cross-lines C of dirtcolored filler are somewhat strong and accentuated, the longitudinal lines between the boards having effect only by reason of the difference in colors in the squares, the presumption being that the boards are tight together and the joint-cracks practically invisible; but as shrinking takes place these joint-cracks open and become filled with 'dirt andthe effect is, instead of destroying the beauty of the pattern, to simply bring out more strongly the longitudinal lines of the pattern, until eventually they become as stronglyv emphasized as the cross-lines C; but

this floor is not as liable to shrinkage or to the effect of shrinkage as ordinary flooring. The stabbing has not removed the Wood,but has simply displaced it and compacted the fibers sidewise. The elasticity of these fibers maintains the fioorsurface in a state of tension, compensating largely for the effect of shrinkage. Thus the lioor Will have peculiar qualities of tightness. Again, ordinary iiooring seasons and shrinks mostly at the top surface, Where it is exposed, and the consequence is that the boards become concave upon their upper surface, subjecting the up per element of the grooves to serious wear and producing sharp shoulders, unpleasant to the foot. The improved ooring by reason of the expansive elasticity of its upper surface will compensate for shrinkage at that surface, While the under surface of the floor shrinks Without compensation. Colisequently the boards will eventually become slightly convex upon their upper surface, thus producing exactly the ei'ect desired, an effect often produced in fancy floors by convexing the upper surface of the pieces of which it is composed. The result in the improved floor is to save the upper members of the grooves from excessive Wear and to produce a surface pleasing to the foot.

The improved lumber may of course also be used for Wainscoting and other purposes, as Well as for iioors; and, if desired, many of the characteristics of the improvements can be produced by dealing With the boards after they are laid, the stabbing and filling being done upon the completed floorinstead of upon separate boards of which the floor is cornposed.

According to the dictionaries, incisions, punctures, holes, dac., may be veritable cuts, as produced by severing edges, or they may be mere displacements, as produced by a pointed tool, and the language seems lacking a Word to express specifically the characteristic of the uncutpunctureoruncutincision. Itherefore employ the terms puncture or uncut puncture as meaning holes produced by a non-cutting fiber-displacing operation.

l claim as my invention- 1. As an article of manufacture, a board with one of its surfaces held under transverse strain by hard-f1lling composition seated in uncut punctures in one surface of the board and displacing the bers sidewise.

2. As an article of manufacture, a board having closely-grouped uncut punctures in its surface filled flush With filling composition and having its surface fibers between the punctures compressed sidewise.

3. As an article of manufacture, a board having closely-grouped uncut punctu res filled flush With colored filling composition, the fibers between said punctures being compressed sidewise.

4. As an article of manufacture, a board having a number of closely-grouped uncut TOO IIO

punctures filled iiush with a colored lling composition, and having similar punctures similarly filled with filling composition of a different color, the fibers between said punctures being compressed sidewise.

5. The improved iooring vconsisting of tongued and grooved boards laid close together edgewise and having their upper surfaces provided with closely-grouped uncut punctures filled iush with filling composition, the fibers between said punctures being compressed sidewise.

6. The improved iiooring consisting of JAMES V. SEE.

Witnesses: Y

WM. S. GIFFEN, P. P. SHEEHAN. 

